


Military Two-Step

by spinninginfinityboy



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Dancing, First Kiss, Fluff and Humor, Genderfluid Character, Humor, Multi, Power Dynamics, Sexual Tension, Trans Character, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-17
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2020-01-15 13:41:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18500143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spinninginfinityboy/pseuds/spinninginfinityboy
Summary: Polly Oliver Perks was beginning to regret ever acquiring the title of Sergeant, much less the position of unofficial military mascot. Okay, there were some benefits - mostly the respect and the shouting, but sometimes also the food - but when it came to formal occasions, it didn't seem worth it. At least the invitation came with a 'plus one'.





	Military Two-Step

**Author's Note:**

> In this I write Polly/Oliver/Ozzer as genderfluid, and as they are the point of view character I refer to them with the name and pronoun set they are most comfortable with at different points in the story. I obviously can't, don't, and frankly would never want to speak for everybody, and I know not every genderfluid person would refer to themself in this way; I'm basing this off of my own experiences figuring out my gender identity, where I would for a while think of myself with different names or pronouns depending on where my dysphoria led me. That's my experience, and as I'm writing Ozzer it's their experience too - no disrespect nor claiming any authority over other people's identity is intended.

Polly was beginning to wish she’d never made it to Sergeant. It commanded a certain degree of respect, yes, and it certainly was a useful position to hold - people always assumed Sergeants knew less than they did, and tended to tell them more than they ought. She could see why old Jackrum had clung to the rank for so long. You were treated in a certain way which it was very easy to grow fond of. And alright, yes, she liked her squad, loved her squad, her little lads regardless of the gender they told her they were. These days that was all the verification anybody ever asked or needed. Being able to bellow orders and threaten military action against anyone who thought it might be fun to joke about her being a woman was a nice perk, if you’ll excuse the pune. And with Maladict by her side as corporal*, life in the Ins-and-Outs really was a good life. 

The problem really was that being a sergeant, and being a woman - publicly a woman - meant that she was considered sort of an honourary officer. In theory this should provide its own collection of happy bonuses, but in practice it seemed to more usually just provide trouble. Paperwork and meetings were boring, but Polly could handle those every once in a while with only minimal swearing. No, the bit she really hated was the dinners.

A free dinner! Meat, good meat, cooked to at least Shufti’s standards** and with all the trimmings plus some Polly had never heard of! Smooth, creamy puddings afterwards, with tiny mugs of strong coffee that Maladict adored. He was always perfectly at home there, of course, despite invariably holding the lowest rank in the room. It was a vampire thing. Even if they were bitten at their lowest point, a vampire was always a toff. Polly despised the whole affair, resented ever having to attend. The extravagance of it all soured her stomach and no amount of flowers in her buttonhole could quite overpower the stench of hypocrisy. Besides, the dress uniform itched something terrible.

This one looked set to be a nightmare. The five-hundredth anniversary of the great treaty of something or other had gathered nobles, dignitaries, ambassadors, and of course military officers from just about every country on the Disc. A dreadfully show-offy affair which would no doubt be steeped in politics. To add insult to injury, Vimes wouldn’t be attending, due to some important family business he had vanished urgently to see to. Now she knew he wasn’t a butcher or even a particularly annoying man Polly had grown rather fond of seeing his face at these events. It seemed he was the only one there who hated them as much as she did.

“You’re sulking, my dear Oliver,” came a voice from over her shoulder. She turned away from the mirror, into which she had indeed been scowling, to see Maladict lounging in the doorframe. It got on her nerves at times, that habit of his; never simply standing, or even leaning, but lounging or sprawling without a tense muscle in his body. She also didn’t particularly like his ability to sneak up on her despite the mirror always being angled to reflect the door.

“You know it doesn’t have to be Oliver now, Mal.”

He shrugged.

“Not always, but sometimes, correct? And I like the way it rolls off the tongue.”

It was true that sometimes Polly didn’t feel… well, particularly Polly, and she typically chose to forego the uniform skirt for reasons of convenience anyway. She wasn’t sure about tonight yet. The way she was feeling, it could go either way.

“They like me to dance as Polly. Makes more of an impression, their little military mascot in a dress.”

“You aren’t wearing a dress.”

Polly cursed under her breath, but couldn’t stop herself from smiling. It could be difficult at times, working with someone you didn’t mind losing arguments to. The dress uniform was itching, but she preferred it over a dress or, Nuggan forbid***, a corset. Instead of Cheesemonger red it was a dark navy in colour, in order to distinguish the officers with their inkpots from the poor lowly sods who wore red to hide the blood. She fiddled anxiously with the sash.

“I don’t know why I bother,” she said conversationally, seeing as Mal was still in the doorway. “They’ll ooh and ah and never be impressed no matter what I wear.”

“We aren’t there to impress them, Polly Oliver.”

She laughed.

“Yes, I know – we’re there for the free coffee and to see if you still have the longest surname in the room.”

Maladict nodded as he stepped forward, fangs glinting in the lamplight. His long fingers slid deftly under her collar and down the length of her sash, straightening everything out.  
Polly made a mental note to douse the fire before they left; she hated coming back to an over-warm bedroom.

“There,” he said with a smile, stepping back to admire his work. “Perfectly dashing.”

Looking in the mirror, there was no denying he was right. The uniform fit perfectly – officers could afford good tailors – and the shade of blue did look rather nice in contrast to fair hair.

“Oliver,” he said, after a moment’s contemplation and a subtle yet defiant lift of his chin. Maladict raised an eyebrow.

“Not looking to impress them? People might talk.”

“Then let them. They know where I can kick.”

A soft chuckle slipped between Mal’s lips, and he offered Oliver a hand.

“It would be my pleasure to accompany you tonight, sir.”

That’ll be the only pleasant thing about it, thought Oliver, and took it.

~*~

The ballroom would have been called cavernous, if it wasn’t for an aide to the Low King going rather drunkenly on about the real meaning of a cavern. Oliver had barely touched the food, given his stomach was rather too full with discomfort, but Mal could eat twice his share easily. And that was the easy part! Really, he just wanted to go home. It was simpler to be Oliver at these events, to let the socks do the talking. To the casual observer it would seem like he was really starting to get the hang of small talk. The truth was, he’d barely heard a word, retreating into his head for the most part. There wasn’t much company there, but it was a lot more pleasant.

“You’re holding up well,” murmured Maladict during a break in conversation. “I’d almost – coffee? – say you’re enjoying yourself.”

Oliver accepted the proffered cup gratefully.

“I think I may have fallen asleep on my feet,” he replied. “I’m held up by nothing but starched trousers.”

“How have the gentry been treating Oliver?”

He shrugged, turning to face the main floor and putting his half-empty cup down on top of an expensive-looking pedestal. A duchess glared. He ignored it. No other duchess could ever really glare at him, not any more.

“Most of them just chuckle nervously. One or two of them seemed a little too interested-”

He was cut short. From the far end of the room floated the faint sounds of instruments tuning up and Oliver just barely failed to stifle a groan.

“Oh, gods, there’s going to be a dance.”

“What’s wrong with a dance?”

Maladict stepped forward to stand by his side, giving every impression of being the dutiful second-in-command in order to distract from his playful tone.

“They’ll all try to dance with the woman who led an army,” he replied, fighting to keep his voice soft and even, “and I’m not in the mood at all. I’m barely in the mood to be a man leading a squadron. Oliver is such a formal name, too, I mean – what’s wrong with being called Ozzer, and scratching my socks in peace without getting stared at? I think I’m getting ogled by a Lord, Mal, and lord above I don’t have the faintest idea what he thinks he’s ogling. I don’t belong somewhere like this. It’s all dancing and politics, and I don’t know the steps to either.”

“Perhaps I can teach you?”

Oliver stopped, and turned to face Maladict, who was once more holding out a hand. He looked a little sheepish, which was difficult for a vampire, and it was only visible for a moment before he managed to smooth the mask of confident amusement back over his features.  
What the hell, thought Oliver, and took it. No matter how many times he and Maladict touched, he was always surprised by the temperature of Mal’s skin. Being technically undead, vampires ran cooler than the average human, but Mal was never cold and his skin was always soft, though it looked stretched thin over bone at times. He let himself be led confidently onto the dance floor, and only paused for a moment to frown when he realized the position Maladict had maneuvered him into.

“You’re leading? Mal, I’m the Sergeant here. Besides, I’m taller than you.”

“You don’t know the steps, my dear.”

“That’s sir, corporal,” Oliver replied with a hint of pettiness. Maladict coloured slightly, but smiled.

“Yes, sir. You don’t know the steps, sir.”

Oliver couldn’t really argue with that.

The band struck up a vaguely familiar melody – a waltz of some kind, probably, that was the sort of dancing people did in places like this – and they began to move. In the absence of conversation to make he found himself watching Maladict closely. Not hard, given they were half a foot apart.

“Heel then toe,” whispered Mal, bending forward to murmur in Oliver’s ear. “Watch me. That’s it.”

Blast it, he really did know how to dance, too. Oliver may not have known the steps, but he knew when they were being performed well, and Maladict simply radiated style. His hips swayed, and Oliver tried not to stare because the hips surely couldn’t be the most important part of this dance.

It ended, eventually, but the assembled dancers were barely given time to breathe before another song began. This one moved faster, with lots of turning, and Oliver stumbled several times but every time Maladict’s hand found his waist and guided him back on track with a soft, fond chuckle. He watched Oliver closely, but it didn’t escape his notice that Mal rarely seemed to meet his eyes.

By the fourth dance, Oliver was certain Mal was staring at his lips. He was also fairly certain that it was getting too hot, and wracked his brain to think whether he’d seen any windows in the vast ballroom. When dance five rolled around his brain had long since given up on any such endeavours, because Oliver – Polly – god, he wished, he – she – was leading, the trousers were starting to get confusing and the stares of watching gentry were beginning to prickle on her – his – neck right atop the rising flush Maladict was somehow eliciting simply by looking.

Damned vampires. This was something straight out of a storybook, or one of the stories she heard told around the fire. They would ask you to dance, and seduce you, and whisk you away. Frankly, who the hell did Mal think he was, doing any seducing on his superior officer? If anyone was to do any seducing, it should be the other way round – and that was assuming anybody even wanted to seduce anybody, whatever that might entail, and to whatever end, and gods be damned could somebody please open a window?

The violin faded away into scattered applause, a little chatter and laughter, and the sound of heavy breathing. Maladict was barely inches away, his slightly parted lips barely inches away, and something seemed to be keeping the distance as strongly as something else seemed desperate to breach it. There was a distinct sense of pressure, and in that moment, neither of them moved an inch.

In the distance, a figure muttered something to the conductor.

The silence died away to be replaced by the wail of an accordion****, and everything half worth worrying about fell away. What did any of it matter? Polly Oliver or both and neither, the sound reached back through their history and tugged at a hundred memories of a hundred parties, right back to their very first time standing on their father’s feet because they were too young to learn the steps. Maladict shivered and tried to step away, looking a little out of his depth, but Oz was having none of it.

“My turn to lead, I think,” they said with a smile, and tightened their grasp on a flushed Maladict’s hand. 

Mal was posh, but toffs didn’t know how to dance like this.

The fiddle began to play*****, twice the speed of the last few dances easily, and Oz practically dragged Maladict into step. Around two-thirds of the dancers had cleared away from the floor, most likely in search of drinks, but instead of feeling self-conscious Oz felt emboldened. Good. They’d need more space for dances like this. In these ones you actually moved.

And by gods, Ozzer moved. They spun and leapt and twirled effortlessly, a lifetime of practice coming to good use. Maladict, eternally put together, was gasping for breath just trying to keep up. Diplomats were watching, aghast, at the pride of Borogravia whirling like a dervish around the floor with a vampire trailing behind, and Oz laughed and once let out a wild whoop of excitement. Three dances came and went with barely a second’s pause between them. They spun away and around and came crashing back almost literally against Mal’s chest, laughing into shared air. The ballroom meant nothing; the dancing stirred in their soul.

But the dancing couldn’t last forever. The last note played, bracketed by another drawn-out wail, and suddenly Oz realized just how close to Mal they were standing. He looked breathless. Never mind that, he was staring at their mouth again.

Everyone else was staring too. Somebody clapped quietly, and was shushed significantly louder. Oz shook away the lingering threads of music from their limbs and gently squeezed Maladict’s arm.

“Sir?” he replied, sounding a little dazed. The point of his tongue came out to wet his lips, and Ozzer didn’t stare.

“I think, my dear Mal, that this might be our cue to leave.”

Mal blinked, eyes seeming to refocus and quickly sweep across the room. Scattered clusters of people were muttering to one another. He laughed unsteadily.

“Is that an order, sir?”

“I think it is. Got enough energy left for a swift retreat?”

“I should say so.”

Enough energy left, in fact, to nab a tray of canapes on the way before anybody had worked out an appropriate response. In a sense it was just like it always had been; in and out, with boots filled with soup.

~*~

They made it out of the palace. They even made it across the garden, and over the decorative wall, but in the gap before the real wall Maladict grabbed Ozzer’s wrist.

“Oz, wait. I can’t – I can’t go back with you. Not without knowing.”

His eyes were wide and the question was so obvious. Oz kissed him, hard, and they slid shut. The answer was obvious too, and it was easier than finding words. Gods, why had this taken so long?

Things… escalated. One moment they were making an escape, and in seemingly the next instant Maladict had his back pressed to the wall and Oz’s thigh pressed rather distractingly between his legs. Blunt fingernails and sharp teeth raked against Oz’s back and neck respectively, and both made them shudder and whine. In response they ran a hand down to grab hold of Mal’s arse, and, smiling to see the reaction it elicited, let their fingers move to trail across the buttons of his trousers.

“Is this the time?” he murmured, though not very convincingly. Oz honestly wasn’t sure how they would have answered had it not been for the sudden, worryingly close by sound of a night guard patrolling the grounds. They took Maladict’s hand and gave it a squeeze.

“At the inn. We can… discuss this further.”

When the night watchman reached the outer wall, there was no sign of anybody ever having been there, save a slightly squashed sausage wrapped in pastry and the distant sound of someone singing an old folk song.

~*~

* He’d dropped the lingering ‘a’ after barely two weeks, telling Polly it fit worse than the dreadful wired dresses; the uniform he wore had been tailored in a way that hid any curves rather than highlighting them, and he had confided in her over breakfast one grey morning that he was planning a visit to Igorina come next annual leave. Somehow it all seemed more natural to both Mal and Polly than the supposed ‘truth’ ever had back at the Keep.

** The Duchess was becoming quite the local attraction due in no small part to the tight ship a certain new employee ran in the kitchens.

*** He had, but the men of Borogravia had more or less unanimously decided their ability to eyeball breasts at any opportunity outweighed their religious devotion.

**** It is a well-established fact that if a piece of traditional music does not begin with a wailing accordion or at the very least a drawn-out “weeeellllllll-“ on the part of the singer, then it doesn’t count.

***** The key difference between a violin and a fiddle being how much fun it sounded when it was played.


End file.
